cookie monster

end of year festivities keep the wangsters busy. the weekend before christmas the parents from the oc came up for a visit. we prepare a feast consisting of a honey-baked ham, sage stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes with green onions, and brown sugar-glazed sweet potatoes. we use half yams and half sweet potatoes. it's difficult to tell the difference in taste between the sweet starches, but the yams are a tad bit sweeter and more moist than the sweet potatoes.

in keeping with our holiday tradition, we make and decorate sugar cookies. each year, dale finishes in record time. we suspect that he's going through the motions and not really that interested in the aesthetic aspect of the process. however, if you were to compare cookies decorated by hue and dale, they're indistinguishable. the only difference is that hue's take twice as long to decorate. that man could work on an assembly line garnishing cookies. he's so fast that after he finishes his own, he begins to decorate hue's share of cookies. hue quickly put the kibash dale's eagerness, but not before he shakes green sprinkles across a couple of his designer pieces.

the weekend before new year's, we visit with the grecc folk at steve's house, which has under gone some spiffy renovations. the addition of a small fire pit in the back has a warm touch. it's nice to catch up with susan's former colleagues. we've said it before, but they are just good people. coincidentally, on the guest list is debbie, susan's former kp associate, and her husband dennis. geriatrics is a small world after all.

of course we bring milagra in tow everywhere and she's quite the attention-getter at the party. so much so that we're scared that donna may want to abduct our daughter. that is, until mila had a minor meltdown for some unknown reason. more in a coffee house mood? we planned to stay for only a short time, but the company was so engaging that an hour turned into almost three, which made us late for our next rendezvous at beverly's.

always late, and a bit of a drive to monterey park, by the time we show up we miss many of beverly's family. however those remaining (beverly, jon, michael, bailey and fred) make entertaining company. fred is beverly's former husband and it's our first meeting. we quite like him. he's a fascinating gentleman with a sharp wit. he relates stories of his child rearing and journal writing experiences. jon and fred definitely share more than facial hair, and seem more alike than the other brothers. we wrap up late and head home after partaking in a hearty soup, eggnog, and peppermint bark.